What Really Bugged Me About Halo 4

Robert Rath

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What Really Bugged Me About Halo 4

After Bungie finished it's Halo trilogy, it set up future versions of the game - for failure.

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Foolery

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Jun 5, 2013
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4 really was unnecessary. I thought 3 concluded Master Chief's story well. And even had a great sense of circular nature to it. Returned to a cryostasis pod, just like Halo 1. Drifting asleep, lost in space, was supposed to be a sacrifice of ending the flood threat. But waking Chief up undermines that.

The only great bit out of 4, was touching on the morality of how and why the Spartans were created. Abduction and indoctrination of children along with dangerous medical experimentation meant to enhance them.
 

ZZoMBiE13

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Well thought out article, and its pretty much right on.

But my big problem with Halo 4 had very little to do with the story itself. Sure, it was all the things you describe. But Halo 2 had a weird disjointed story and it was still passable.

My problems with Halo 4 were gameplay related. And the biggest of all can be summed up in one word; Prometheans. They simply are not fun to fight. Every Promethean encounter plays out exactly the same. Pick off the dog enemies, down the hover-healers, then take out the big tank enemies. Every. Single. Time. It gets old very quickly.

Couple that with so many of the Promethean's weapons feeling like retreads, no new enemy vehicles since Prometheans have that cheap teleport, and how difficult the Battlewagons were to take down on Legendary and it adds up to a lot of less than fun encounters.

Spartan Ops was a good idea, but every time it was a Promethean level it always worked the same way. Go to spot, listen to chatter, hit button, now become completely and instantly surrounded. Then kill dogs, then kill hoverers, then kill those cheap transporting skull faced suckers. I enjoyed the mode and it's modular story telling design. But since it replaced Fire Fight, which was less context and more balls to the wall action, it ended up feeling like a consolation prize when it should have been the exciting new feature.

Halo 4, ultimately, was a complete disappointment. And this is from someone who has been a Halo fan since 2001. I spent a LOT of time being part of the Halo community even spent a year drawing a fan comic (117 comic strips! tee hee). And after Halo 4 ended I almost didn't want to keep going. Ultimately I got past the sadness, but I never went back to play Halo 4 again. To date, it is the only Halo game I only played through once. 1, 2, 3, and all the side stories I've played innumerable times. But 4 was a one and done (not counting multiplayer of course).

I have started to let myself be a little excited for Halo 5 finally. But it's not hype. It's a cautious animosity that I'm trying to channel into something positive. If all it does is allow for some more fun enemy encounters, I'll take it. But I really hope that 4 was limited because of the hardware and that with the X1 they can spread their wings a bit and hopefully get me 100% back on board.
 

evilnancyreagan

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Prolly not the best idea to lump King Arthur and Jesus into the same analogy, especially when it's in regards to fiction.
 

Agayek

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evilnancyreagan said:
Prolly not the best idea to lump King Arthur and Jesus into the same analogy, especially when it's in regards to fiction.
Like it or not, they serve very similar roles in their respective tales. There's no religious commentary involved, only an analysis of the story.
 

The_Darkness

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Halo 4... Lets see.

Prometheans were bullet sponges, which weren't particularly fun to fight, but I got the hang of it. I liked the new weaponry.

The plot - I loved the new focus on Cortana. In a way, this felt like it was deliberately subverting the 'traditional myth' that Robert Rath refers to. Our hero is still human, and must face a very human - but nonetheless very terrifying - problem, a friend's mortality.

Individual missions... were forgettable. Nothing really held a candle to Halo 3 or Reach's more memorable maps. In some ways it felt like they were just going through the motions: Here's the Forerunner base, here's the base defence mission, here's the assault on enemy strongholds... Flying a Pelican was damn fun, though it was over far too quickly.

And then...

A trench run (yeah, it's a classic) on what is essentially the Death Star aiming for Earth - which is visible above us - with some bombastic music in the background, Lasky and the Infinity backing me up, a terrific sense of urgency... This is exactly what I wanted out of this game!

But then it's followed by trudging through corridors, more bullet sponge battles, and a final conflict where Chief sets off a nuke at point blank range and somehow survives, while Cortana can talk and touch him now, but is somehow dead. WHAT?!

Above all I'm disappointed because it felt like they were setting up for the Composer to link in with Cortana's rampancy and mortality - imagine a digital level with her fighting alongside us for one final push - but no, even though it was a device that could potentially bridge the gap between Chief and Cortana... it's just treated as another world destroying super-weapon.
 

PrimePowerOn

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Spot on. Also, losing your sound designer when the music of the first three games was so compelling doesn't help!
 

evilnancyreagan

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Agayek said:
Like it or not, they serve very similar roles in their respective tales. There's no religious commentary involved, only an analysis of the story.
I'm impartial but, some people might be offended by the connotation of the J-man being a fictitious entity.
 

Gizen

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evilnancyreagan said:
Agayek said:
Like it or not, they serve very similar roles in their respective tales. There's no religious commentary involved, only an analysis of the story.
I'm impartial but, some people might be offended by the connotation of the J-man being a fictitious entity.
At no point is Jesus referred to in the article as a fictitious entity, and anyone who reads into it that way is just looking to be offended intentionally so they can pick a fight.
 

evilnancyreagan

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Gizen said:
At no point is Jesus referred to in the article as a fictitious entity, and anyone who reads into it that way is just looking to be offended intentionally so they can pick a fight.
Robert Rath said:
The most important part of this myth isn't in the text, it's what the text conjures in the reader's mind. After the Pyrrhic victory, the story shifts from a tragic tone to a hopeful one. Though the hero is gone, he is not dead, and will one day deliver us from evil. But the key phrase here is one day. The hero's return, whether it's Arthur saving Britain or Jesus defeating evil and establishing his kingdom, always exists in the future. The story's whole function depends on it.
The context here certainly implies that Jesus is sourced from a work of fiction and his return is merely a literary device crafted with the sole intention of invoking narrative drama.
 

Agayek

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evilnancyreagan said:
I'm impartial but, some people might be offended by the connotation of the J-man being a fictitious entity.
Pretty much this:

Gizen said:
At no point is Jesus referred to in the article as a fictitious entity, and anyone who reads into it that way is just looking to be offended intentionally so they can pick a fight.
It's an incontrovertible fact that there are stories told about Jesus, regardless of what anyone thinks of their veracity. Mr. Rath is doing nothing but drawing parallels between the stories of Jesus, the stories of King Arthur, and the story of Halo. There is no commentary or claims either way on the veracity of the source of aforementioned stories.

Hell, the Catholic Church itself largely recognizes the Bible as a work of metaphor and story instead of hard facts. I'm not sure why someone else doing so would cause problems.
 

Daaaah Whoosh

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Yeah, I guess that's the main problem I had with Halo 4: everything up to that point let me believe my own story, and then 4 comes around and says "No, the Humans have always been the best species in the galaxy, and they always will be, and the Forerunners are just humanoid aliens, nothing special there, oh and Master Chief has the social development of a six-year-old." Letting questions go unanswered is a great thing in science fiction (remember the midichlorians?), and unfortunately Microsoft has more love for money than they do a great story that inspires the imagination.

Oh, and the new enemies had about four unblockable instakill moves that they could decide to use at any moment. That was pretty rage-inducing. And the Plasma Pistol, pretty much the most unique gun in the series, was in incredibly short supply, completely destroying the fun of energy shields. And the multiplayer let you spawn with plasma grenades and a shotgun. And Cortana didn't go nearly crazy enough (I was hoping for Wheatley-level crazy). And the Didact was never formally introduced, we were just supposed to believe everyone knew who he was.
 

oldtaku

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I agree with the analysis, but it's just looking at more specific cases of the big problem (which you also point out): Halo 3 ended it. Nicely. Halo 4 had to un-end it for purely marketing reasons. Plotwise, there was no way that could go well.
 

Gizen

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evilnancyreagan said:
Pretty much this:

Gizen said:
At no point is Jesus referred to in the article as a fictitious entity, and anyone who reads into it that way is just looking to be offended intentionally so they can pick a fight.
It's an incontrovertible fact that there are stories told about Jesus, regardless of what anyone thinks of their veracity. Mr. Rath is doing nothing but drawing parallels between the stories of Jesus, the stories of King Arthur, and the story of Halo. There is no commentary or claims either way on the veracity of the source of aforementioned stories.

Hell, the Catholic Church itself largely recognizes the Bible as a work of metaphor and story instead of hard facts. I'm not sure why someone else doing so would cause problems.
This indeed. Many of the stories regarding Jesus are indeed fictional, and are acknowledged as such even by religions themselves, with only the most die-hard and fervent believers refusing to accept that. And whether these people are offended or not can't a basis whether to use an example or discuss something, because otherwise we'd be living in the dark ages still. The article is right to call upon those stories as metaphorical examples, since that's all they ever were. It still never implies that Jesus himself was fictional though, only that some (okay, a lot) of the stuff written about him was.
 

elvor0

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Daaaah Whoosh said:
Yeah, I guess that's the main problem I had with Halo 4: everything up to that point let me believe my own story, and then 4 comes around and says "No, the Humans have always been the best species in the galaxy, and they always will be, and the Forerunners are just humanoid aliens, nothing special there, oh and Master Chief has the social development of a six-year-old." Letting questions go unanswered is a great thing in science fiction (remember the midichlorians?), and unfortunately Microsoft has more love for money than they do a great story that inspires the imagination.
The Halo lore always seemed pretty solid and well defined to me, sure the forerunners were a bit "mysterious" but none more than any other "precursor civilization" (except perhaps The Precursors from Jak and Daxter...heh), but I wouldn't say the lore was set up to have much room for you to make your own backstory.

I mean you can if you /want/, but 4 didn't seem to be any more "solid" in how the lore was than 1-3, it just introduced new elements. Master Chief...has always been quiet and essentially empty as far as a personality goes, 4 is hardly the game to start ragging on him for it. Heck, Chief had more personality in 4 than the others I'd say. As far as I can see, the Forerunners were always going to be hyper advanced aliens, it even felt like that's what everyone thought they were In Universe too. This isn't a universe with Gods and Magic.

I dunno, someone could likely correct me on a few of thse things, I'm limited to the games. But with something like Halo I think basing stuff on just the games is okay, as that is it's primary outlet, and the story presented in them shouldn't rely on stuff thats in the expanded universe without explaining it in the games.

evilnancyreagan said:
The context here certainly implies that Jesus is sourced from a work of fiction and his return is merely a literary device crafted with the sole intention of invoking narrative drama.
It looks like you're just looking to blast it for the sake of it. He clearly does not state or imply that Jesus is ficticious, he just qualifies that by messiah he doesn't mean the typical Jesus imagary that's invoked by "Messiah", and more the literary trope of the sleeping Messiah, of which King Arthur becomes the better example.

If people get offended over this, that's their own insecurities and issues, not the writers, there's no religious agenda, no atheism pushing, just an article that invokes the similiarities in the stories of Jesus, King Arthur and Master Chief. Regardless of whether or not you think Jesus is real, a story is still a story, regardless of the events in them being real or not.

Even so, you can still point out similarities in "real" events to those of narrative structure in stories, because they're usually based on existing stories of events to begin with.

Besides, his beliefs could well be that Jesus /is/ ficticious, but we start arguing which religion or none of them is true, we're liable to start a war.

Thats it! Noone say anything to anyone about anything ever again, because someone out there is bound to get offended by just about anything. If someone genuinely gets offended by this, they need to grow a spine and reassess their priorities.
 

evilnancyreagan

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Gizen said:
This indeed. Many of the stories regarding Jesus are indeed fictional, and are acknowledged as such even by religions themselves, with only the most die-hard and fervent believers refusing to accept that. And whether these people are offended or not can't a basis whether to use an example or discuss something, because otherwise we'd be living in the dark ages still. The article is right to call upon those stories as metaphorical examples, since that's all they ever were. It still never implies that Jesus himself was fictional though, only that some (okay, a lot) of the stuff written about him was.
So, you're saying that it's acceptable to invalidate any beliefs so long as they are contrary to the status quo.
 

Agayek

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Oct 23, 2008
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evilnancyreagan said:
So, you're saying that it's acceptable to invalidate any beliefs so long as they are contrary to the status quo.
No, he's saying that someone who perceives this article as an attack on their religious beliefs went in actively looking for something to attack their religious beliefs so they could be offended about it, and that censoring the article to account for that is both detrimental to the article and counter to effective discourse.
 

evilnancyreagan

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Agayek said:
No, he's saying that someone who perceives this article as an attack on their religious beliefs went in actively looking for something to attack their religious beliefs so they could be offended about it, and that censoring the article to account for that is both detrimental to the article and counter to effective discourse.
so, if a person is offended it is only because they chose to be.

There's a huge margin between discretion and censorship. I don't see how this article is improved with the banality of a Jesus reference.
 

BloodSquirrel

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Halo 4 is where the series started to suffer from Bioware syndrome, where new developers are trying to innovate on patterns laid down by old ones without understanding those patterns and why they worked.

Having the Didact show up and be a dumb bond villain was a big mistake. The Forerunner stuff should have been left in the past, where it could remain mythical and interesting. What the series really needed was a new direction, not a muddling up of the old one.